Climate billionaire aims to set stage for 2016

California billionaire Tom Steyer turned heads in Washington with the news that he plans to spend $100 million to help make climate change a defining issue in this year’s elections.

But it gets even bigger: The hedge fund executive turned green activist might be willing to lay out even more than that eye-popping number, and he’s looking to spend it in places that are also important for 2016.

The fleshed-out details paint a picture of a big-pocketed donor who is going beyond his early efforts to help individual Democrats, such as Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, as well as address specific issues like the Keystone XL pipeline — and instead wants to give his signature climate cause a starring role in the next presidential race.

Steyer’s operation “is going to be very aggressive” and will set itself apart from the efforts of mainstream environmental groups, said Betsy Taylor, a Takoma Park, Md.-based leader of a network of wealthy climate donors who attended a recent discussion of the strategy at the billionaire’s California ranch. “They’re fearless. They don’t worry about access to Democratic Party leadership.”

Steyer isn’t publicly saying much about how he’ll spend of his projected campaign war chest through his NextGen Climate Action super PAC, which The New York Times first reported Monday. The strategy could make him a progressive counterweight to big conservative donors like Charles and David Koch. But it’s unclear how far even $100 million will go in the post-Citizens United world, or whether global warming can compete on the presidential campaign trail with issues like jobs and President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Still, Steyer has told potential backers he has big plans. Those include trying to influence the debate about climate change in Senate races in Iowa and New Hampshire and the gubernatorial contest in Florida.

He may also spend money influencing the governor’s race in Pennsylvania, where one of the Democrats vying to unseat Republican incumbent Tom Corbett is former Bill Clinton environmental aide Katie McGinty.

In addition to looking ahead to 2016, Steyer’s strategy includes focusing on states where a candidate who supports acting on climate change faces an opponent who’s a “denier.”

That description matches the governor’s race in Florida, where Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s top challenger is Democratic former Gov. Charlie Crist, and the Senate race in Iowa, where Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley and several potential Republican challengers are vying to replace retiring Democrat Tom Harkin.

While Scott has said he doesn’t believe that science has proven that humans are causing climate change, Crist used to hold annual conferences on global warming when he was governor and was a loud critic of BP during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill. And Crist may need all the financial help he can get: Scott, a former hospital chain executive, is planning to spend as much as $100 million for his reelection effort, possibly enough to match Steyer’s entire nationwide campaign.

Besides being a notoriously tight swing state, Florida is a prime example for climate advocates of how sea-level rise can threaten communities.

Steyer also wants to target states that are significant in determining whether Democrats can keep the Senate this year. Those include Iowa and New Hampshire.

And he wants to sway governor’s races in states where the winner could move ahead with action on climate change without waiting for Washington. That could point toward jumping into Pennsylvania to help McGinty, who chaired the White House Council on Environmental Quality under Clinton, or other Democratic gubernatorial candidates.

Steyer and his PAC’s chief strategist, veteran Democratic operative Chris Lehane, outlined the approach during a gathering of wealthy climate donors at the ranch during the first weekend of February. Columbia University climate researcher James Hansen, former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was on hand to give a briefing on potential climate change effects in the years and decades ahead. The gathering also included fellow billionaires and some of Steyer’s oldest friends from the financial community.

“There were definitely some heavy hitters there,” Taylor said.

The New York Times first reported Monday that Steyer’s goal is to spend about $50 million of his own money and raise another $50 million from green-minded donors to use in 2014. NextGen officials confirmed those figures Tuesday but stressed that $100 million is not the ceiling for what Steyer’s PAC may spend this year.